for I am a born St. Thomas man, and natives
seldom suffer. In general, it is the new comers
who get in for it." I could only mutter, "Consolatory,
certainly!" and change the subject. I
asked about the state of the colony. "Well," he
said, "the American war has been pumpkins to
us. Our house alone has cleared upwards of fifty
thousand pounds since it began, and two or three
other houses have been doing nearly as well. It's
pretty, too, to see the blockade runners lying
under the very noses of the Northern men-of-war.
They see 'em load, up anchor, and off, and they
mustn't chase 'em for four-and-twenty hours,
though they know if they've a good start there's
no chance of taking them. The times have been
lively, too, with the sailors. The crews of the
Confederate vessels have had so many fights with
the Federal men, and the English have joined in
with such jolly good will, first on one side, and
then on the other, that now the Danes won't let
any Americans land." "And pray," said I,
"besides these rows, how do you amuse yourselves
here?" "Well," was the reply, "we don't
amuse ourselves. We trade!"

After our drive we dined at the hotel. The
dinner consisted of all the most indigestible
dishes conceivable, and at St. Thomas it is de
rigueur to eat of them all. I went to bed with
a racking headache, and in a state highly favourable
for yellow fever. Morning came at last,
however, without an attack, and released me
from the tender mercies of the mosquitoes. I went
round with my friend to several shops to make
my purchases, posted my letters to England, and
by noon was sailing for La Guaira in the schooner
Yñez. Juan came on board at the last moment,
having deserted me all the time I was at St.
Thomas. He merely said, "Friends on shore,
sir; you'll excuse my being late." I said, "Of
course;" and begged him to release me from the
importunity of the negro boatman who brought
me on board, and who asked two pounds for the
job, though the legal charge was only one dollar
and eighty-two cents. We got rid of him at last
for three dollars.

We ran out of St. Thomas's harbour on the
2nd of July with a fine breeze. The crew of the
Yñez consisted of a captain, five men, and a boy,
each blacker than the other, and all of an
extremely hang-dog look. As I had thirty thousand
sovereigns on board, it seems a miracle that they
did not tumble me quietly into the water when
I was asleep. The crew of the Yñez, however,
were pirates only in look, and I lost among
them nothing more important than a gold
pencil-case. We slept on deck in a sort of
hencoop, in which were not more vermin than are
usually in hencoops. Our meals, over which the
captain presided in his shirt-sleeves, were principally
of land-tortoise, hard sour cheese, pickles,
dried fish, pastels filled with nameless ingredients,
and quimbombo: an excellent vegetable, and
almost the only thing I could eat. It is the okro
hibiscus, has somewhat the look of a young cucumber,
and is full of a cold gluten, very pleasant
in a hot climate. There was a Creole lady, with
two or three small children, who lived in the
cabin or hold of the vessel, and never made her
appearance on deck throughout the whole passage.
Once or twice, during a squall, I descended
to this cabin, and found it full of ants, cockroaches,
and rats. The Creole, half undressed,
lay gasping with the heat, while her children, in
a state of perfect nudity, scrambled over her.
Besides this lady, myself, Juan, and an American
doctor, there was also another passenger: a thin
feeble old man, who was brought on board with
great care. I heard him ask his servant for a
cigar, which turned out to be strymonium, for
the man was too ill to smoke tobacco; and to
say this of a Spanish Creole, is saying a good
deal.

About 5 P.M. we were passing the island of
Santa Cruz, belonging to the Danes. The
governor of St. Thomas shows his appreciation of
the healthiness of his own island by living at
Santa Cruz, which is thirty-two miles south of
St. Thomas. Santa Cruz is nineteen miles long
and five broad, and contains a population of
fifty thousand souls. In general it is much
flatter than St. Thomas; but there is one hill,
Mount Eagle, which rises to one thousand one
hundred and sixty-two feet above the sea, and
another near it, called Blue Mountain, which is
but sixty feet lower; There are two towns,
Christiansted to the east, and Fredericksted to
the west. At the former there is a harbour very
difficult of access, but safe enough when once
entered. The island is well cultivated. We
passed Santa Cruz; the sun set; and after
smoking a last cigar, I turned into my hencoop
and slept soundly, except for a few minutes
about midnight, when I soon went to sleep again
with an indistinct idea of something disagreeable
going on. The red horns of the sun were just
showing above the horizon, when Juan came and
woke me, under pretence of asking me if I would
bathe; but I could see by the grin on his features
that there was something wrong. Presently, not
being able to contain himself any longer, he
exploded into a chuckle, and said, "There's a dead
man on board, sir."

"Indeed?" replied I, by no means gratified.
"And pray who may he be, and what does he
come on board for, if he's dead?"

"Well, sir," said Juan, "it's the old man, the
passenger who seemed so ill. About midnight
he got worse, and called the captain, and asked
to be thrown overboard, he was in such pain.
The captain said he could not accommodate
him in that way, but he would get some hot
fomentations, and see if that would ease the
pain in his chest. 'It's no matter,' says the
passenger. 'Whereabouts is the moon?' When
the captain had showed him where the moon
was, he said very quietly, 'When the moon goes
down I shall die.' And so he did, sir. You
would hardly believe it, but at the very moment
the moon went down, the old man died."

"Did he ask for the doctor?" I inquired.

"Ask for the doctor! I should think not,"
said Juan, in high disdain. "Why, all the